Early Purges 1928-33: Shakti, “Industrial Party,” Ryutin Group, Party Card Check / ● Shakhty Trial
○ 55 engineers in the Donbass region were charged with sabotage
● “Industrial Party”
○ Show trial of leading figures in the state industrial research and planning institutions
● Rutin
○ Former moscow party secretary circulated a document that said staling was the Evil Genius of the REvolution. He was later expelled from the party and executed
● Party Card Check
○ Party members had to hand in their “Party Card” for checking, and any suspect members would not have their cards returned to them at the end. This was expulsion / ● Show trials to destroy the reputation of those who were accused
● Murder
● Intimidation
● Falsifying charges
● “Registration” much like Hitler did with the Jews in his early years. / ● 20% of communist Party members were expelled
● Paranoia increased and the fear of Stalin’s terror intensified.
Post-Kirov Purges 1934-36 / ● Stalin signed Decree against Terrorist Acts
○ under guise of hunting down murderer of Kirov
○ actually began new purge of the Party
○ claimed it was by Trotskyists and Leftists
● Yagoda was sent to carry out the purge
● Kamenev and Zinoviev arrested
○ given a charge with no meaning
● Control of all police/guards etc. to NKVD / ● Played off assassination to his advantage
● Used the country’s love of him to instill a sense of need to pit people against each other
● Stalin attacked everyone that he suspected
○ all “enemies” wiped out
● military court created outside the law
● “serious crimes” investigated / ● Party members used it to get a leg up by killing their competition
● higher sense of fear amongst party members
● arbitrary arrest and execution became the norm
● Stalin controlled all of Russia’s enforcers
The Great Purge: 1936-39 / ● Stalin irrationally declared that the Soviet Union was in “a state of siege”
● First was the purge of the Party
○ Purging of the Left:
■ Men pleaded guilty to crimes they did not commit. There was a sense of demoralisation at being disgraced by the party that they dedicated their lives.
■ Confession was the last act of loyalty they could pay to the party.
■ High ranking men confessed, which made it hard for lower ranking people to prove their own innocence.
○ Purging of the Right
■ High ranking people such as Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky
■ “anti-Soviet Trotskyist Centre”
■ There was the Stalin Constitution which was attached to Bukharin’s execution.
■ It guaranteed basic civil rights but never outlined the power of the Party, essentially giving the Party free reign to do whatever it would like, with no restrictions.
● Second was the purge of the armed services
○ Stalin wanted to keep the armed forces subservient
○ First he reorganized many of the people in order to lessen the possibility of a conflict.
○ Most of the “heroes of the civil war” were arrested and executed.
○ This left the armed forces entirely destroyed and without any leadership
● Third was the purge of the people
○ Stalin kept a quota of how many people he wanted purged, and if that was not able to be met by actual guilty citizens, he would request that innocent ones were taken in and executed as well.
○ There were even more show trials of prime ministers and Party secretaries
○ There was mass repression and fear in everyone’s daily life
○ Yezhov was a huge proprietor of this and caused much of the terror himself.
○ People were shot and thrown into mass graves.
● Torture was officially legalized / ● Public confessions and trials
● Falsifying charges
● Physical and mental torture / ● Approximately 328,000 people executed.
● Over 35,000 army officers arrested
● 1 in every 8 people were purged
● Every family lost at least one member.
The Later Purges 1941-53 / ● Stalin’s daughter had an affair with a Jewish man
● Leningrad Affair
○ Lenin became more paranoid
○ dispensed with Central Committee and Politburo
○ all semblences of restrictions of his power were gone
● Destruction of Jews would being
○ stopped by Stalin’s death / ● Party purge again
○ party and city officials
● Accusations of anti-Stalinism
● Leningrad used as base
● / ● Led to deStalinisation
1. Why does Stalin continue these destructive policies from 1933 until he dies and how does he “get away” with this policy?
● He is paranoid that everyone is a threat to his power, and he is under the impression that the most important thing is that he stays in power.
● There are some true opponents to Stalin’s rule, meaning that he has to make sure he quells any dissent immediately, even when its not truly there.
● He keeps a very good foot forward in the media. He never lets himself be publicly associated with any of the death or destruction of the purges. He is always in public being seen around cute children and helping others. He is fervently portrayed as a deity in society and his likeness is everywhere, and only associated with good things.
● He is a politician and knows how to keep his bloodied hands hidden.
2. How far beyond Stalin does the responsibility for the purges and the terror go?
● He claims that it is primarily happening under the secret police without his knowledge, however all of the death orders are signed by him. He is the one who ordered a quota based solely on how many people he wanted dead instead of based on how many people were truly a threat to him.
● This forced members of society to be constantly wary of each other, because even an empty accusation could lead someone to be killed.
● Stalin was fully responsible for the terror and the purges, but it eventually got out of hand to the point where not even he could fully control what was happening.